Draymond Green has a choice. He can continue to kick and hit other basketball players and get punished by the league at inopportune times. Or, he can figure out how to stop. These are his two options.
Draymond Green’s kicking is dangerous and he needs to stop
If Green can’t control his limbs, the league should take punitive action.
Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Green seems to think he has a third path forward: he can continue to kick and hit other basketball players and argue with the league office about intent, kinesiology, and fairness. After an ill-timed flagrant foul earned with a foot in James Harden’s face on Thursday, Green lashed out at the league office on Saturday.
“I just laugh at it because it’s funny how you can tell me how I get hit and how my body is supposed to react. I didn’t know the people in the league office were that smart when it came to your body movement. I’m not sure if they took kinesiology and all this stuff for their positions to kind of tell you how your body is going to react when you get hit at certain positions.”
Green is arguing, as Warriors partisans and some analysts did in the wake of Thursday’s flagrant, that the kick on Harden was an unavoidable result from the collision and Green’s mid-air loss of balance. Physics, not a devil on Green’s shoulder, brought the foot to Harden’s beard. The evidence is not particularly compelling, but through the prism of assuming best intentions, and given Green’s certitude, you can perhaps buy the case that Green didn’t mean to kick Harden in the face.
But that kick didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in a world where Draymond Green was suspended for racking up too many flagrant fouls in the 2016 playoffs after body-slamming Michael Beasley at the buzzer, after kicking Steven Adams between the legs multiple times, after striking at LeBron James’ crotch.
It happened in a world where the league’s competition committee, according to USA Today’s Sam Amick, spent two long meetings over the summer discussing how to legislate “unnatural acts” like Green’s kicks. It happened in a world where Green has a record of playing dirty.
Context matters. History matters. Like it or not, what Green has done in the past matters. Green set the benefit of the doubt on fire last spring, and he’s not going to get it anymore. That much is clear: The league office will not allow him to continue to kick opponents without sanction.
Green, then, has a choice. He can stop kicking other players, or he can keep on doing it and face the consequences.
Based on Saturday’s soapbox monologue and agent B.J. Armstrong’s Sunday whinging, Green isn’t ready to give up his Sisyphean war on rules yet. And based on what Green tried to do to Suns rookie Marquese Chriss on Saturday night, he’s not ready to even try to stop kicking yet.
This wasn’t on national TV in a marquee matchup. This didn’t happen to a high-profile MVP candidate. This didn’t even appear to connect. But this one is completely uncontroversial. There is no reasonable argument to be made that kicking at Marquese Chriss here was unavoidable. At best, he’s flailing for a foul call. (Instead, Steph Curry drew a foul on P.J. Tucker on a screen up top. Tucker then picked up a tech arguing the call.)
Green has two choices: stop or suffer the consequences. The league isn’t going to change its mind and let him continue to kick opponents. Based on Saturday, he isn’t putting much effort into controlling his crazy legs. So it’s time for escalation.
Remember when J.R. Smith untied an opponent’s shoe at the free throw line, got warned to stop and then did it again anyway? The NBA elevated its punishment, hitting Smith with a $50,000 fine.
Guess what? Smith stopped.
Whether it’s a fine or a suspension, the NBA ought to issue a bigger penalty for Green’s decision to continue to kick and kick at opponents in service of drawing fouls, playing rough, or whatever the motive may be. This is basketball, not MMA. Incidental contact is going to happen. Sometimes it will hurt.
But repeated kicks and punches from the same rough player just aren’t acceptable. It’s time to end it, even if it means giving Green the night off and a hefty fine for something that doesn’t get an opponent hurt.
For the Warriors, it just might be better to get that over with now instead of when Golden State is, say, up 3-1 in the NBA Finals.
